


all our lives

by RaisingCaiin



Series: the kitten fics [1]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: (as much as there can be for these two), Brief mention of animal cruelty, Companionable Snark, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-19 15:46:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13126821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RaisingCaiin/pseuds/RaisingCaiin
Summary: Tyelperinquar could use Annatar's help in a little matter of gifts and names.He would not have thought this so difficult a proposition for the Lord of Gifts, but apparently it is his own presence that complicates matters.Huh.





	all our lives

**Author's Note:**

  * For [erlkoenig](https://archiveofourown.org/users/erlkoenig/gifts).



> i didn't even arrange this part of the exchange, i swear, but i was super excited to get your name and your prompt
> 
> season's greetings XD

“What.”

Annatar had always had the most enviable talent of making an interrogative sound like a statement.

“Is that.”

“ _That_ ” – Tyelperinquar did not quite possess the same valuable talent, but oh how he delighted in mimicking Annatar’s – “is a cat.”

“I _am_ in possession of a functional set of eyes, Tyelpe,” Annatar returned. Curled up in a chair, with his arms folded upon the rest and his chin tucked into them, his feet pulled up out of sight beneath his robes, the Maia could almost be mistaken for a cat himself. “I can see that it is a cat.”

It was the attitude as much as it was the position, Tyelperinquar mused. “Mmm, if you say so. Because it’s actually a kitten, not a cat. You know – a babe? A juvenile of the species in question?”  

Annatar did not deign to acknowledge such cutting distinctions for the wit that they were. “Perhaps then I must reframe my confusion in a fashion better suited to your dull frame of mind this evening, Tyelpe. _Why_ is there a cat in your rooms.”

Well, if Annatar would not use the interrogative as it had been intended, then neither would Tyelperinquar. “Because I wanted one?”

“And a moment’s whim seemed reason enough to – Tyelpe. Tyelpe, there are two of them.”

Annatar sat up a little straighter as he said it, setting his bare feet upon the floor and gathering his sleeves about himself in fastidious horror, but it was too late. A second of the fuzzy little creatures had already gained the arm of the chair somehow, and now followed his every movement, batting at the fine white fabric with great concentration and little mewls of frustration.

(Perhaps Tyelperinquar had lifted it there, as he walked past his friend’s chair with their bottle of wine for the evening – but, as he said, only _perhaps_. And if so, then that was a fact he proposed to take with him to his grave.)

“There are _two_ of them?” he repeated, as if puzzled. He was actually delighted. He sat down by the hearth, for the flames were warm and welcoming, and the smaller of the two kittens – the smarter – scrambled after him, demanding information in its tiny animal voice.

Annatar’s look of disdain fulfilled all the criteria for a work of art: stunning in its own appearance and perfectly fulfilling of its function.

“Tyelpe. _Tyelpe_.” Grimacing, Annatar strove to draw his sleeve away from the tiny claws that would mar it. “You knew there were two of them.”

And again with the question-as-statement! If he weren’t in such a very good mood, and expecting to soon enjoy a much better one courtesy of the wine and his friend’s company, Tyelperinquar would be growing quite annoyed.

But instead, he simply uncorked the bottle. “I did?”

When he held out the cork to his diminutive shadow, the kitten took one sniff of it and sneezed – a tiny sneeze for a tiny creature. He felt the sudden urge to coo at the darling thing, and when Annatar, obviously still watching him, growled, Tyelperinquar gave in and indulged that urge. And, of course, followed up the coo for the kitten with a cheeky grin for his friend.  

Annatar was already muttering as he stood in a flurry of robes, brushing them down fastidiously before striding across the few steps that separated chair from hearth. He settled himself across from Tyelperinquar with a huff. “Tyelpe. Will you stop being ridiculous?”

Finally, an interrogative where it belonged! Tyelperinquar felt absurdly proud, until a little miaow of distress reminded him of whom Annatar’s flight had left stranded and alone.

“You left my sweet baby unattended?” He feigned a tone of shock and censure as he stood and strode over to scoop up the abandoned kitten from the depths of the chair. “Scandalous of you, o Shining One!”

“Your – _babies_?” Annatar, though, was _not_ feigning his own tone of mild revulsion as Tyelperinquar returned to his seat with the second kitten. “Tyelpe, you are too ridiculous for words. It is a miniature version of an apex predator, and you imagine that its instincts will be lulled if you spoil it enough?”

Oh, for crying aloud – his hand was larger than the poor thing’s little head!

Tyelperinquar sighed in some amusement as he took up the uncorked bottle again. “Ai, my friend! Are you certain that we are speaking of my poor babies, or are we now discussing you?”

He held out the bottle, and tipped it as if to pour; per their usual custom, Annatar should have leaned forward and held out his glass, meeting him halfway.

But instead, the Maia regarded him with some unnamable, unreadable expression before standing once more. He had crossed the room and slammed the door behind himself before Tyelperinquar had even registered that he was leaving.

“What did I say?” Tyelperinquar asked the kittens. His bewilderment was unfeigned this time.

The poor sweet things, bored and tired and demanding as they were, had no answers for him.

 

~ ~ ~

As Annatar had so astutely observed, there were two of them.

“They need names,” Tyelperinquar decided.

“They need to be thrown back to their dam,” Annatar muttered. He was back in his favored chair, curling his hands within his sleeves and tucking his head atop his arm. “Or better still, drowned.”

“Annatar!” It was one thing to dislike the little creatures, however strange and unfounded and amusing Tyelperinquar personally found that opinion. But it was quite another to suggest such casual violence against them, and for what crime? Taking up Tyelperinquar’s time? Distracting his attention from Annatar?

No sooner had he formulated this thought, of course, than Tyelperinquar realized this was probably it.

_(He was also trying to revisit the statement made in jest some nights past, for he could not fathom why Annatar would take offense to such an innocuous jest.)_

But in the here and now, Annatar sniffed. “I apologize for offending your delicate sensibilities, I am sure. Do go on with whatever inane issue you erroneously decided was worth your time.”

“They need names,” Tyelperinquar repeated, determined not to be sidetracked.

“Whatever for? _Male_ and _female_ – there, you’re done.”

“You have not an ounce of imagination in your soul,” Tyelperinquar scoffed. “Fine, be that way – I am sure I can think of perfectly good names all by myself!”

“Tyelpe, they are animals, and infants at that, and there is nothing of individual merit or interest about them whatsoever.” One pale limb stretched, momentarily, from its sleeve-made nest, and Annatar yawned, languidly, displaying for a breath his own sharp white teeth.

“To recap,” he continued, settling back a little more tightly still: “one is larger, one is smaller. One is male, and the other, female. Both have dark coats. The female is faster, more intelligent, but suffers some slight pre-existing injury – to the ribcage, it appears. The male is slower of mind, but unparalleled in athleticism.  And that, Tyelpe, is all that there is to it, and to them. Pick what names you will, but such titles will only ever be whimsy, imposed upon the creatures by arbitration from without.”

 “Stars, but you are cold.” Tyelperinquar was struck by the sudden urge to scoop the kittens up and hide them away from Annatar’s all-seeing eyes. He subsumed this urge into a fiercely tender kind of petting for both the little creatures.

At his words, though, Annatar sat up a little. As if finally aware of how he might sound to another who was orders of magnitude closer to the creatures of the earth than the Powers of the West. “I – I did not meant to discomfit you, Tyelpe.”

“Mmmmm.” Tyelperinquar would not let himself dwell on that odd moment, where it seemed as though a gulf of worlds had opened up between them. Over kittens, of all things! It was chilling, sometimes, to be reminded that Annatar was not just a good friend and an excellent craftsman, but also a god, able to forget such – such little things.

“Prove it, then,” he decided. “Come here, Annatar, and help me name them.”

“Tyelpe. . .” But complain as he might, Annatar did forsake his cozy spot curled in the chair to come and sit by the hearth. “Very well, I am here. What role am I to play in this farce?”

His stunning face contorted in a grimace when one of the kittens – the larger, the one that had molested his sleeves upon the chair the night before – crept cautiously upon his fine hands, splayed as they were upon the hearthstones, and patted at the long slender fingers with ginger curiosity.

Tyelperinquar could not help but smile, just a little, at the Maia’s absurd discomfort. “Naming things, my friend – is the exercise truly such a challenge to your keen mind? Who or what do they remind you of, then? Let’s start there.”

Annatar actually rolled his eyes, so Tyelperinquar decided that he would count this as a win.

( _Had Annatar, that first night, been offended because he too saw himself as a higher order of creature?)_

It became less of a win, though, when Annatar then proposed to have the kittens named Beleg and Turin, after the Doriathrin heroes of old.

“It would have discomfited Melian, and besides.” Annatar watched the female with restrained approval, likely noting how she explored and kept to herself or approached Tyelperinquar with due caution. “That one is smarter, a strategist and a hunter, while this stupid creature seems to imagine that he is fated to attack a god with any chance of defeating him.” Annatar brushed the larger kitten, the male, off his sleeve yet again, and smirked when it fell, yowling.

Tyelperinquar snatched the poor thing away, clucking soothingly even as he struggled to parse all the information implied in this simple statement.

 “You knew Melian? And Beleg Cuthalion? You have thoughts on Turin Turambar’s role in the Dagor Dagorath? Annatar, that is amazing! Why have we never spoken of this?”

Annatar, the irritating creature, brushed these queries off as casually as he had the kitten.  

“A name should reflect something of one’s nature, and thus-“

“You are named for your munificence,” Tyelperinquar interjected, unable to refrain from availing himself of the opportunity to tease. Just a little! Annatar responded to teasing about as well as the kittens – which was to say, not well at all, and with as much complaining. “Gifts for all, all bless the Lord of Gifts! Except kittens, it seems. No gifts for those of the family felicidae.”

Annatar glared, but continued as if this was where he had intended to go all along: “ _and_ _thus_ , you are named for your father and his father before him.” Ouch. Except that Annatar did have the tendency to bare his claws when teased too far. “Silver-of-fist, craftsman of the line of Curufinwë – heir of Fëanor, gifted in all he touches! See, Tyelpe, _that_ is the stuff of proper names – one’s lineage and one’s deeds, the things about one’s self that cannot be hidden from those who would know them in their totality.”

It was his turn, Tyelperinquar decided, to scramble to his feet and walk away for a moment. Anyway. They needed their wine for the night, didn’t they?

Annatar already seemed to be repenting of the scratch by the time Tyelperinquar returned, though. “That was uncalled-for, Tyelpe. I regret having hurt you.”

“It is nothing.” He focused on pouring a measure for each of them. “Forgotten already!” His first draught of the evening emptied his entire glass.

Annatar eyed him but forbore to comment.

Tyelperinquar appreciated that.  

“Returning to the matter at hand. . .”

“Mm, yes. Well. Were they wolv –“ Annatar coughed over an errant swallow. “ _hounds_ , wolf-hounds, I would know better of their innate natures, and most likely I would have bred them myself.” He smiled as he warmed to his subject, his eyes distant with some fond memory, and Tyelperinquar’s breath caught at his beauty.

“From their lineages and their temperaments, then, I could adduce proper names,” Annatar continued. “Terror-by-night, I might call the little dog, for his potential as a guardian of bridges or halls; Hunts-in-shadow, I might call the little bitch, for her capacity as a tracker. I would then be sure to raise each one in such a manner as would further suit them to their names, the possibilities I had seen within them.”

He punctuated this extraordinary speech with a demure sip from his glass, still eyeing the kittens, now rolling around on the rug, with some disdain. “But these are not wolves, Tyelpe, and I knew not their sire or their dam, so short use-names would be the best I might offer. And I was never much of a one for cats, at any rate – too willful, and unbiddable.”

What in all the world. . .

He would, Tyelperinquar decided, address the least peculiar part of this whole thing first. “What in all the world, Annatar – _you_ , calling a creature unbiddable? You do realize that you might as well be describing yourself, right? And what, you kept a kennel but could not even find names for your hounds without _training_ them?”

It was probably the flickering light of the fire, honestly, but sometimes Annatar’s eyes seemed to glow with a flame all their own. “Tyelpe. _Stop comparing me to the little beasts_.”

“What? I didn’t-“ No, wait – he had. That first night with the kittens, when he’d mocked Annatar’s concern for predatory instincts, and now again, calling him, what had he said – willful, and unbiddable?

“I – stars, Annatar, I am sorry.” His friend was probably offended by being compared to the creatures of the earth, which he himself most decidedly was not. Why, Tyelperinquar was lucky he had deigned to associate with the Mírdain – with Tyelperinquar himself – at all! “I will do my best to avoid such associations in future.”

“Stop looking so woebegone,” Annatar snapped. “Just – do not do so again, yes?”

Tyelperinquar deemed it best to simply nod and move on. “Did you never have a beloved pet, then, that you named simply for love of it?” he asked, instead of reiterating again how sorry he was to have hurt such a magnificent being, no matter the apparent insignificance of the slight.

“No,” Annatar said shortly. But then, seeming to regret his own shortness, he allowed: “But there was one I knew, once, who would have called the most fearsome beast ever to live, Shoe or Flap-wing or something comparably stupid. It was – it was a trick intended both to annoy me and to keep his great mind apprised of the creature’s function when his own thought operated on so much greater a scale than ours.”

Aulë then, or even a fellow Maia from the Blessed Lands, before Annatar had forsaken the peace of them to come and defend Middle-earth during the War of Wrath. Tyelperinquar felt himself smile, his mood softening, as he learned something new about his friend.

“Shoe, then, for the male,” he said, equally soft. “In memory of this friend of yours.”

 Annatar’s eyes widened. “He was not quite a – a _friend_ , Tyelpe, as you would define the term.” 

“If you thought well of him, or cared for him” – the phrase alone was a thrill upon Tyelperinquar’s tongue, and the possibilities inherent in it, a thrill all down his spine – “then his memory deserves to live on in these lands, however small the memorial.”

“Tyelpe. . .” Some great feeling swelled in Annatar’s voice, and then _oh stars oh Powers oh god_ he was leaning forward, reaching across the space to tangle his slim fingers in Tyelperinquar’s hair and lay his brow against Tyelperinquar’s own.

“You cannot know what it is that you have said, or all that it would mean to me,” he murmured. Tyelperinquar was too busy struggling to keep his breathing under control to acknowledge the sentiment, especially as Annatar angled his own face, ever so slightly, _to brush his nose against Tyelperinquar’s_

**_breathe_ ** _, Tyelperinquar, **steady**_

but Annatar continued: “But regardless, I find that your ignorance does not depreciate the value of the sentiment in any way.”

Did he – was he – _would he lean forward further still and-_  

Then one of the kittens – Shoe, in fact, whose naming had prompted this scene straight from Tyelperinquar’s frustrated dreams – set his inquisitive claws to the soft white fabric sheathing Annatar’s legs, and the moment was shattered.

Tyelperinquar found his hair yanked somewhat painfully as Annatar pulled away to discover and curse whichever of the little goblins he most despised now.

“Blasted _cats_ ,” Annatar seethed, whatever softer feelings he had obviously felt seconds ago fleeting now.

It should not have been funny – the kittens’ claws were sharp, Tyelperinquar could say from experience, and Annatar’s fine robes might be shredded, his finer skin pricked.

But Tyelperinquar could not contain himself. Without completely disentangling his friend’s fingers from his hair, he dropped his head to Annatar’s shoulder and laughed and laughed and laughed.

“You are just as bad as they are,” Annatar muttered, regaining his feet, but eventually he allowed himself to be coaxed out of pursuing some unspecified retribution against Shoe, who had fled the unexpected noise mewling anyway.

“I suppose I should be glad that you retain enough of your wits that you still find my pain funny, in light of your own,” he said brusquely, picking strands of Tyelperinquar’s hair from between his fingers once he had disentangled them.

Tyelperinquar did not even mind the tug, so high had he been soaring on the unexpected contact. He attempted to explain at least the first part of this. “I am well, Annatar. I am fine! Come back, please?”

Annatar looked at him, curious, and Tyelperinquar –

Well, perhaps he panicked a little. He hadn’t meant to voice that last part aloud!

Please stars, Annatar would think he meant _please come back and play at naming with me again_.

 “The girl still needs a name?” he tried.

Not, _please twist your fingers in my hair again, lay your head to mine again, let me feel you touch you kiss you_

_please, Annatar_

Annatar raised a golden brow. “Does she now, Tyelpe.”

 “Yes,” he said. _Yes, please, say my name._ His voice sounded hoarse, even to his own ears. “Yes, Annatar.”

But something he said must have been convincing, for Annatar actually returned to his seat, his fingers still fretting at the pinprick holes in his soft white robes, and forewent his grumbling long enough to smile across at Tyelperinquar.

Oh, that smile! If Tyelperinquar’s craftsmanship lay in words, he would say that that smile could light a thousand candles, or some comparable nonsense, and Annatar would smile again, and. . .

Tyelperinquar cleared his throat. “Your – _ahem_ , your friend. Did he leave you any other names we might re-purpose for our second kitten?”

“Oddly enough, I find myself rather reluctant to speak of him now,” Annatar murmured. “I would rather hear what you have to say of the matter, Tyelpe. So. You have a cat named Shoe and a cat who awaits the doom of her own equally banal title.”

“A _kitten_ named Shoe.” Sophistry and worse, but Tyelperinquar was determined to keep Annatar speaking, and his attention away from Tyelperinquar’s own fumbling.

“And?” Annatar prompted. He leaned close again, as if sharing confidences. “I half expect to hear you say that next you will name the other poor beast Sock.”

He had played along!

Suddenly overwhelmed with fondness, it was Tyelperinquar who closed the gap between them this time – Tyelperinquar who threaded his fingers through those pale locks, Tyelperinquar who set his brow to rest against his friend’s, Tyelperinquar who closed his eyes before he could see the shock that must be dawning in Annatar’s.

“You – you needn’t have.” It came out so soft that Annatar would have missed it, were his face not so perilously close now.

“Need not have what, Tyelpe?” Annatar’s voice was remarkably steady, but still Tyelperinquar dared not open his eyes.

“Need not have. . .” Stars, how could he say it?

And then he felt it – the feather-light weight of four slender fingers atop his cheek, their thumb brushing soft at the corner of his mouth, and an air that came not of his own breath brushing against his lips.

Tyelperinquar’s eyes flew wide again quite without his conscious direction.

Annatar was smiling now, again, and the devastation that the sight of it wrought upon Tyelperinquar’s heart only grew greater still, at such a short and breachable distance.

“Well, my love?” Annatar asked softly. “Need not have what?” This close, the odd color of his eyes resolved itself into a sheen reminiscent of pyrite – gold, yes, but softer than gold, somehow, in all its myriad flecks and striations.

It made no sense, none of it made any sense, Tyelperinquar could make no sense of it, but Annatar strode on: “Need not have come to you, need not have indulged you in your little naming game, need not have stayed despite your insistence upon seeing me as a creature so far beyond yourself? Tyelpe, Tyelpe – enough of this unbecoming self-doubt! Whatever the truth of us, you shall not know until you step beyond that, and I have waited long enough.”

Tyelperinquar’s hand was trembling, he could _feel_ it. Annatar’s eyes remained steady upon him, unblinking and sure, and Tyelperinquar could feel the tears gathering in his own as he strove not to lose that stunning gaze for even a second.

“I am delighted to be here with you, my love, the night that you decided.” Annatar’s words came out in a near whisper, and his thumb at Tyelperinquar’s lips brushed again. “Whatever comes next, Tyelpe, it is up to you.”

It was too much power, too much responsibility.  

“I like the name Sock,” he whispered. “It’s perfect.”

“Dammit, Tyelpe-“ Annatar started, but Tyelperinquar clenched his hand in that golden hair a little tighter and gathered all his courage to him and closed the distance between them and

kissed him.

 

~ ~ ~

Annatar’s skin was warm and silky-smooth, and _stars_ but Annatar’s hands were never still.

“Where did those damned creatures of yours get to, Tyelpe? I will not have this first night with you spoiled by their wretched meddling.”

Right now, Tyelperinquar could only hope that the poor things were well away for the moment, for there was no telling how much of his wits he could retain to rescue them if they interrupted Annatar now. “ _Nngh_.”

“Eloquent as ever.” Annatar nipped at Tyelperinquar’s neck, replacing his fingers with his mouth. If the move was intended as a punishment or a deterrent, though, it was not working. Tyelperinquar shouted, fisting a handful of his lover’s _his lover his lover **his lover!**_ hair with a roughness he could not contain.

“ _Mmm_.” At such close range, Annatar’s murmur of satisfaction vibrated against his throat like a purr.  
“Oh, my Tyelpe – better, so much better. Mmmm. What would you have of me, my love?”

“Annatar. _Annatar_!” How – how did Annatar expect him to think, with his lips feeling out the rhythms of Tyelperinquar’s pulse and his hair tangling itself within Tyelperinquar’s hands?

“Yes, well spotted, you,” Annatar murmured, amused. But then he withdrew, to the short distance that Tyelperinquar’s grip permitted him. “Tyelpe. _Tyelpe_. Tyelperinquar! Stop gaping a moment and pay attention!”

If Annatar was his lover now, then – then Tyelperinquar could take his head in his hands, couldn’t he? And so he did, one palm oh-so-light to either side of Annatar’s face, not confining him or holding him still but simply framing him, so that Tyelperinquar might marvel at the treasure he had been offered.

Annatar stilled at his touch, and with a sigh, his pyrite eyes slid shut.

He was not as fragile as Tyelperinquar’s little charges, nor as reliant upon Tyelperinquar’s care and goodwill as the tiny creatures were, and this, all this, Tyelperinquar knew.

But to hold him thus – to feel the shapes of his face, the silk of his hair, and to know the trust, the intimacy, engendered in such a gesture. . .

Perhaps it was Tyelperinquar who was fragile now, Tyelperinquar who was dependent.

He cared not.

Beneath his hands, Annatar stirred. Eyes still closed, he raised his right hand to cup Tyelperinquar’s left, leaning the weight of his head down against their cupped hands and rubbing his check into it, then raising his head, turned it once more to brush a kiss into Tyelperinquar’s palm.

“Charming, my Tyelpe, but hardly a comprehensive answer,” he murmured.

Tears pricked at Tyelperinquar’s eyes, and some sound must have escaped his throat, for Annatar turned his head back to face him, his eyes sliding open once more.

“Tyelpe. Flattering as your stupefaction is, I would appreciate it if you did not go all mawkish upon me quite yet, not when we have _just_ gotten you over that miserable self-deprecation of yours.” With this, Annatar straightened and pulled his hands away, and Tyelperinquar, his own strength still tempered to a kitten’s softness by disbelief and desire, let them fall as they would. They lighted at Annatar’s hips, and he could only watch, stupefied as accused, as Annatar tilted his head in a coquettish movement, daring him to reach down and close that small gap created by their heights.

He could not resist the dare. He did not want to.

“I imagine we have only a limited window of time before those terrible beasts of yours come back yowling for food or amusement, love,” Annatar whispered, amused again, and so close now that the words brushed against Tyelperinquar’s very lips. “So. Your choice, quickly! What would you have of me?”

_Anything he could have. Everything Annatar would give._

“I-“ His voice was as hoarse as if he had not spoken for a year. “Annatar, I – _ngh_ – I am fairly certain that I should be asking that of _you_.”

“For crying aloud, Tyelpe.” His lips were soft, and warm, and his teeth, his tongue, were never far behind. Tyelperinquar could feel himself growing headier upon this regard than he had with the wine. “I was hoping for a more _definitive_ set of your desired objectives, silly thing.”

How – _nngh_ – how very much like Annatar, to try and treat making love _oh stars, oh Powers, steady ON Tyelperinquar_ as if it were a project with parameters to be outlined, tasks to be fulfilled, roles to be assigned! “Annatar.”

“Mmmm?”

“This is-“ It was important that he told him, however faltering the words would sound. “Annatar. This – this is all I could have wished of you. I never thought-“

“Permit me a guess – you never thought to ask,” Annatar finished for him, tilting up for another kiss, and another, another, even as he rolled his eyes. It was not entirely correct, but Tyelperinquar was hardly going to argue such a small matter at this point. “Well, Tyelpe?”

_Stay with me, always. Do not leave Ost-in-Edhil, or forsake the Mírdain for new pupils. Please._

It didn’t come out quite as he had planned it, though. “Sock and Shoe could use another master.”

“Dammit, Tyelpe,” Annatar breathed, but he accepted another kiss, and Tyelperinquar’s hands falling lower to his laces, with undue good grace all the same.

 

~ ~ ~

 _Oh_ , Tyelperinquar realized eventually, many, many years after Shoe and Sock – and their get, and theirs and theirs – were all dead, their animal lifespans a mere flicker against the elven conception of time.

Perhaps Annatar had objected, that first night, to the thought that he had been tamed, and by Tyelperinquar’s hand at that.

He could have just said, Tyelperinquar thought with some exhaustion.

There really had been no need for the Maia to prove himself dangerous and untamed by running off to create a bloody Ring.


End file.
